Croydon Airport

[Anita Bensoussane]

Croydon Airport, which closed in 1959, is mentioned by Enid Blyton in The Secret Mountain and The Ship of Adventure. Doing a spot of Googling today, I came across an interesting article about the history of the airport - it contains some photos of the booking hall, planes, etc (click on links at the bottom of the article to see those.)

http://www.croydononline.org/history/pl ... rports.asp" target="_blank

Anita

[Boodi]

Thanks Anita,

I really enjoyed reading that information and looking at the old photos of the airport.

Cheers,
Boodi

[Petermax]

Very enjoyable. The photos remind me so much of my local airport Southampton, prior to its massive expansion in the 1990's. The original terminal building had a wonderful 1930's art deco interior, although many features were later obscured by modernisation. Eastleigh Airport as it used to be known, was such a sleepy place serving mainly the Channel Islands.

[Lucky Star]

Very interesting Anita, thanks. I note that the powers that be decided Croydon would not be needed as an overflow airport; little did they know that within a few years they would be opening Gatwick which lies just about 15 miles south of Croydon!

The original terminal building had a wonderful 1930's art deco interior

In the 19th and early 20th centuries many transport hubs such as train stations, airports and even ports were built to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. This was, I believe, partly due to the fact that travel in those days was a real "event", an adventure. Today when mass travel has become commonplace many of the new built places from which we embark have been made dreary and utilitarian, efficient but ugly. Micheal O ' Leary of Ryanair has much to answer for here. He stated that passengers did not want "Taj Mahals" to travel from, anything would do so long as the fares were cheap. Accordingly he has had built, at Dublin Airport, a huge prefabricated shed reached by a prefabricated walkway which you are doomed to visit if you ever fly into that city with Ryanair. Cheap and functional but utterly depressing.

[Viking Star]

Many thanks Anita.

I would never have guessed all that history about the airport - knowing present day Croydon as I do.

Many of the names are familiar to me - I used to live relatively nearby in Sutton. The last time I was in Croydon (apart from passing through on the train - East and West Croydon stations are major interchganges), was to see the not very good updated version of 'St Trinians'.

I liked the picture of the booking hall!